Month: June 2014

Gavrilo Princeps and updates about our films

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This weekend, we are working on three projects. I am trying to get the second part of the film about the 6 gay texts in the Bible finished and there are so many details that are left -simply in the presentation. Secondly, I am storyboarding the first of our polyglot Lear songs. So far, we have recorded sequences from two of these songs- the first is in english and Turkish (there was a young person of Smyrna) and the second is in English and Greek (there was an old man of Corfu).

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The music is by David Watson and the Greek sequence is being recorded later this week in Athens in a studio I know well from my days recording englsh language cassettes for “New Editions” and Longman or Macmillan. I recorded the english line a few weeks ago in Oxford. Anyway, the idea is that these songs will be thoroughly theatrical, looking and feeling like something out of the 19th Century. So this brings me to the third thing we are working on this weekend which is the backdrop to the Turkish Lear film. This is an image of the centre of modern Izmir, which was also used in Posters of the 1950s, one of which I am copying here

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…So while I am messing around with animation in one office, Necati is slaving away drawing the background in the other office. Later, we have some sketches of Leamington Spa to finish for “Clements and Church”.

Gavrilo Princeps was the boy who assassinated the heir to the Austrian throne, the Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 and this was the event that catapulted us into the first world war, courtesy of some bizarre activity by our then Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, who has the record for holding the office for 11 years from 1905 to 1916. Today is the anniversary of that event. Gavrilo Princeps was the son of a local postman,  a Serbian nationalist. I wonder what his name actually means: the word γαύρος in Greek is the word for a little fish or anchovy. (Incidentally, in writing the Greek word, I mistyped and hit an “N” instead of a “rho”. That would have come much closer to a word that certainly does not mean “fish” in Russian. I think it is one of the exclamations made at the beginning of “From Russia with Love.”) The general feeling one hundred years ago was that Princeps’ action was fairly unimportant, unless of course, one happened to be the Archduke Ferdinand or his wife Sophia, the Duchess of Hohenberg, then of course it was immediately a matter of life and death.

Princeps himself had had a troubled life. He wanted to join the circus but was considered too weak to do any serious stunts and also apparently he looked improbably gay in a leotard. There were apparently 6 (or 7) conspirators, linked to the “Black Hand” (led by Dragutin Dimitrijevic) and the assassination attempts went on for about an hour. Between them, the conspirators had six bombs and 4 Browning pistols. The first conspirator was the son of a minor Bosnian noble, called Mohammed Mehmedbasic and when it came to the point, he lost his nerve because a policeman was standing next to him. He was later arrested in Montenegro where he was overheard bragging about his part in the conspiracy. Nedeljko Cabrinovic threw a hand grenade at the open-topped car at 10.15 but the driver, Leopold Loyka, accelerated and the bomb actually exploded under another car that was following the Royals wounding Eric Von Merizzi and Count Alexander as well as about 20 spectators. Cabrinovic’s plan was to bomb the car and then vault over the railings of the bridge swallowing a vial of Cyanide as he did so. Cabrinovic’s poison was useless and his attempted suicide failed. He was captured by police.

The Duchess was slightly hurt by a bit of shrapnel which had cut her neck. She was stoic, though as was her husband. They went on to a reception at the Town hall and then to the hospital to visit his wounded aides, but on the way the driver took a wrong turn, passed Moritz Schilller’s cafe where Princeps was hiding. The car got into further difficulties, stalled and Princeps fired at a distance of five feet, hitting the Archduke in the neck and his wife in her lower right abdomen. She was pregnant. The second bullet also hit the Archduke in the chest. His wife was able to say “What has happened to you?” before apparently fainting. She had in fact died. He said, “Sophia, don’t die. Stay alive for the children.”  Count Von Harrach owned the Gräf & Stif car and was acting as the couple’s bodyguard; he was standing on the running board of the car as Princeps fired. He supported the Archduke’s head and asked if he was in pain. “It’s nothing,” said Ferdinand repeatedly. He died at 11am, having been carried with his dead wife to his suite in the Hotel Konak, exactly 1 hour after arriving by train in Sarajevo.

Oddly, the Archduke might have made a good Emperor. He rejected alot of his uncle’s fuddy-duddy approaches to the empire and wanted to make concessions to the slavs. The emperor Franz Josef disliked his nephew intensely, not least because he disapproved of his wife, Sophia who was not descended from Imperial blood. The archduke must have been a bit dim or received idiotic advice because the visit to Sarajevo, urged repeatedly by the Bosnian Governor-general, Oscar Potiorek, was made at a time of Serbian tension and specifically on 28th June, St Vitus day, a Serbian National holiday that commemorates the defeat of Serbia by the Ottomans in the battle of Kosovo in 1389. During the battle, the leaders of both armies, the Suktan Murad I and Prince Lazar who led the Serbs, both died. To make matters worse for the visiting Royals, this was their 14th Wedding anniversary.

Because of the Duchess’s lowly birth and the appalling pomposity of the Emperor, her coffin was placed on a lower bier to her husband’s at the funeral service in Vienna. More astonishingly, her children were denied access to the funeral because they were not considered Royal enough to share the Church with the emperor and his family. Ferdinand had anticipated some of this and had created two marble tombs under their house so they could at least be buried together. I suppose he did not anticipate that they would be used so soon.

Riots broke out in Sarajevo in the days that followed the assassination.

arrest of princeps

here is a photo I was sent that I understand shows Princeps’ arrest

The fate of Princeps is barely recorded in History books, but makes poignant reading. He was too young to be condemned to death so was given a 20 year prison sentence instead. A third conspirator, Danilo Ilic, was old enough to be executed a year later. The fate of two  conspirators is bizarre: Vaso Čubrilović was 17 and not particularly rebellious at all; the worst thing he had done to date was to walk out of school while the Hapsburg National Anthem was playing. I gather he claimed that he was worried any attack on the Duke might hurt the Duchess so on a point of chivalrous honour, he chickened out. After a 16 year prison sentence, he became a history teacher. Cvjetko Popović claimed to have weak eyesight and did not see the car at all. He served a prison term and then became a museum curator. I do not know what happened to Trifko Grabež (was he executed?). Once a year, the various conspirators were put into solitary confinement to commemorate the day of the assassination, 28th June. Princeps, in particular was singled out for brutal treatment. His arrest was apparently very nasty. He was kept in appalling conditions, and attempted suicide unsuccessfully with the same drugs given to Cabrinovic that were so out of date they simply made him vomit; later, he contracted TB, had his right arm amputated and died in the early part of 1918. He was buried in an unmarked grave which was subsequently identified and his remains were placed in a chapel built to commemorate Serbian heroes. His home which was destroyed during the War was rebuilt and became the Museum of Yugoslavia in Sarajevo until it was destroyed again in 1941 when the Croatians/ Germans invaded Sarajevo. It was rebuilt in 1944 by Tito and became a museum again until, the 1990s when it was destroyed for a third time.

Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the various activities today in Sarajevo is the erection of a statue of Princeps. Whether he is seen as a freedom fighter or as a terrorist is perhaps an academic point now, but the fact remains that he ignited one of the worst wars ever. I am not sure this is worthy of a bronze statue. I was sent a photo that shows Bosnian Serbs kissing and touching the statue in Istocno shortly after the unveiling ceremony last night.

ladies touching statue of Princeps- for luck?

Today is also the first day of Ramadan:

best wishes for ramadan from zontul films

Erasmus and the TEXTUS RECEPTUS

I am in the middle of finishing the second part of the film about the 6 texts in the Bible that condemn Homosexuality. What is clear is that the evangelical enthusiasm for and often aggressive repetition of these verses on the internet is a bit misplaced. The verses are not at all as clear as they appear to be. More on this later when I have finished the film. Meanwhile, here is a page from the diary of some drawings of Erasmus. This is based on two different statues but the shape of the eyes and mouth is quite consistent and familiar from the Durer drawing and the Holbein paintings.

I wonder a bit about the importance of the “Textus Receptus” which is the Greek text lying behind the King James Version. The problem is that much of it is simply a translation from the Latin Vulgate back into what Erasmus supposed the Greek ought to be. Otherwise it is based on Byzantine texts and the Septuagint.

There is an interesting story early on when Erasmus is improving the latin “translation” of Paul’s letters. He write in 1512, “It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans in somewhat better Latin.” Then he adds, “I have already almost finished emending him by collating a large number of ancient manuscripts, and this I am doing at enormous personal expense.” I get the impression that the “emending” is a form of embellishing rather than translating as Erasmus does not mention any Greek originals and I think by this date had barely taught himself Greek (an interest in Greek began when he visited england in 1499 and was introduced to John Colet who was influenced by Patristics; he only seemed to start teaching himself, however after 1506). Of course, he talks in a later letter, “But one thing the facts cry out, and it can be clear, as they say, even to a blind man, that often through the translator’s clumsiness or inattention the Greek has been wrongly rendered; often the true and genuine reading has been corrupted by ignorant scribes, which we see happen every day, or altered by scribes who are half-taught and half-asleep”…

But what an interesting man.

 

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Is Putin Gay?

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Given all the publicity surrounding the anti-Gay propaganda law in Russia, (which merely makes national a series of local laws already passed in 10 regions of the Russian federation since 2006) it seems quite extraordinary that any Russian biographer would dare to spend time speculating about whether his President is Gay, yet a book by a man called Belkovsky does just that. The idea is not that Putin’s recent divorce is the result of some sort of homosexual fling, but rather that Putin is “latently” gay, spends too much time with his dogs and that this is the result of being the son of an alcoholic. The affair with gymnast Alina Kabaeva is some sort of “beard”. “The small Vladimir,” goes the text, “grew up practically without a father and without the love and care of his parents. He was a withdrawn and grim child. Putin was born the son of an alcoholic two years before his official birth date. His mother moved to Georgia with Vladimir, only for the child to be shunted off to Leningrad a short time later to the couple who would become the official parents of the future president.” It makes one almost sympathetic. Poor fellow. I was two months’ premature, but Putin, says the text, is two years’ premature: I was abandoned and so was he, it seems. So desperate was Putin for a real family that he identified Yeltsin as a father figure and Roman Abramovitch as his surrogate brother.

It seems that Putin spends most of his time with, and reserves all his affection for his two dogs, the Labrador Conny and Bulgarian shepherd dog Buffy. And then the writer goes on to look at his two daughters Mariya and Ekaterina. I cannot quite see where they fit into the story, though. Now, I will not speculate any further than Mr Belkovsky but the idea that Putin is gay sounds almost as far-fetched as the suggestion that Gordon Brown, or Prince Edward or even, God forbid our current Foreign Secretary might be harbouring homosexual tendencies.

There will never be any evidence for a “latent” homosexual tendency anyway unless Putin starts sharing hotel bedrooms. Even then, that would only be evidence of his parsimony. Much the same rumour mill went wild about claims made in the 1960s that the then Pope Paul VI was gay, and the claims have been published in a small book by Franco Bellegrande. Paul VI at the time challenged the claims publicly and demanded a day of prayer for the perceived insult. In fact, what he actually got was a weekend of sniggers. Maybe, Belkovsky suspects Putin has been surfing the internet to whet his curiosity and that his internet history is about to be made public by Edward Snowdon? Somehow, I think this is unlikely. Maybe this story is there to mock all the sporting photo-opportunities, those bare-chested manly poses with fishing tackle in the snow, or maybe the author was thinking, on June 30th last year when Putin signed into law Article 6.21 about the Queen’s answer to her son Hamlet when he asks her if she is enjoying the play, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” We shall never know, unless Belkovsky is silenced forever or imprisoned. then we would really smell a rat. That is not going to happen.

 

Anyway, for all that, Putin remains a joy to draw. I will post pictures of Paul VI later- many of the recent Popes have been fun to draw.

Alternative Comedy

 

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The Young Ones was gross, silly and outrageous written by Mayall and Ben Elton (who went on to doctor “Black Adder”), mixing farce, absurdism and political jibes (“the bathroom’s free, unlike the country under the Thatcher junta”). Of the four main characters, Neil is the easiest to caricature, and was the easiest to bully in the show so maybe that says something. Rick, the Rik Mayall character, is the hardest to define and to draw. He puts forward a series of outrageous views and is generally ignored. So, if Neil is Wendy Craig, the “wife”, then Rik is essentially a reworking of the Nicholas Lyndhurst character in the Carla Lane sitcom “Butterflies”. I think both series ran for about 25 episodes in all, though “Butterflies” seemed to be going on for ever (and I loved it). Strange, the impression both shows made. The “Young Ones” began in the last season of “Butterflies”. There really is no link between them except that both series, whether they intended it or not, are strictly formulaic. I think the father figure in “Butterflies” gets a better deal than the “Mike” character in “The Young Ones”. But on to the formula of the classic family sitcom, Carla Lane added introspection while Mayall added punk anarchy. Very brave to commission the “Young Ones”! Rik Mayall turned up in Black Adder and was tremendous. A fine performer and writer and he will be missed.

Convention for farce is very important. It is about setting up a discipline which can then be broken and leads to confusion, embarrassment and all many of intrigue. With a television series, that convention can be established early on and later episodes are all about manipulating the characters. This is the way Commedia works and more historically the way Roman comedy works too-

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(eg: Plautus or frankly the Sondheim update “A funny thing” which had Richard williams titles or the British TV spin-off “Up Pompeii”). Stock characters with predictable responses to given situations…and just to look back at Rik Mayall, the commedia technique is mostly based on physical violence.

Islamic extremism and mis-use of the word “fundamentalism”

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I despair of broadcasters who use the term “fundamentalism” as a catch all for the types of Islamic extremism that we would all broadly condemn. The problem with words that are vague and also loaded is that they take on a life of their own and pop up all over the place. Today, there is a fairly heated debate about the presence of extremism in some schools in the Midlands. There is a debate about who should take responsibility for this- the home secretary, Theresa May or the Education Secretary, Michael Gove. The shadow Home Secretary points out that the argument involves a betrayal of the principles of Cabinet government and that what is said privately and what circulates in letters between ministers should stay private so that the Government can present a united front on important issues that have been debated. The principle is that when a Minister rejects the consensus position adopted by the Cabinet, then he or she should resign. It is not honourable to take the spat out of the Cabinet room.

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I drew the faces at the top because I was actually interested in lip movement and the reporter on the BBC had the most dynamic lip movement and seemed to be always on the edge of a smile or a gleeful whinny. The shadow Home secretary has one of the longest necks I have seen! William Hague has almost no lips.

Now to the issue about Fundamentalism. This began or was identified in the 19th Century as a branch of extreme Protestantism influenced by German Pietism and that reacted against liberal modernist approaches to bible interpretation. The term “Fundamentalism” became popular in the 1920s. But it emerged from evangelical christianity with a number of different emphases- it was never just a matter of believing that every word in the bible was “literally” true, though the theme of some sort of biblical “inerrancy” dominates the movement. The absolute fundamentalist movement was a reaction to modernism and a retreat to the “fundamental truths” in the written bible. Some scholars would see pre-1962 Catholicism and Orthodoxy as fundamentalist Churches, too and the Society of St Pius X would be a good example of Catholic fundamentalism. What is written down cannot be wrong or interpreted in any other way.

The problem with Fundamentalism and Christianity is that Jesus spoke Aramaic, the Christian Bible was written in Greek, translated first into Latin (the Vulgate) and then into english and other languages at the Reformation. The acceptablity of the books of the bible were decided by councils in the early Church, and as Dan Brown so cleverly (!) explores, there remain copies of some texts that did not get the approval of the Church. Some of the “Apocryphal” books however circulated along with the canonical books and provide for instance all the exciting details of the Christmas story which are found in Greek icons and in Giotto’s frescoes- the ox and the ass, and the presentation of the virgin in the Temple (The Gospel of Pseudo Matthew and the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary). The ambiguity of what was and was not canonical was resolved by the Church. The only way that Protestant Fundamentalism can survive, therefore, is by a careful use of Greek and Hebrew texts or by claims that the English text was itself the subject of direct divine inspiration. This obsession with ensuring the correct texts led to the collection of some of the most important and antique manuscripts but these manuscripts highlight the fact that a single word can change the meaning. They also make it clear that we should never confuse antiquity and authenticity. The two words are certainly not interchangeable when it comes to the study of Christian texts.

As the Twentieth Century developed, Fundamentalists took on some of the more Right-wing political campaigns of America, and there are some, for instance, who see the establishment of the State of Israel as an important political event because it ushers in the final age.

Islam, in contrast to Christianity developed very quickly and the Koran was a complete text at a very early point in the history of the Religion. There has been very little debate about what texts in the Koran are correct and indeed how they should be understood. In this way, Islam is by its nature a fundamentalist religion. To talk about “islamic fundamentalism” is therefore to talk about Islam in General.

But two major developments in Islam happen towards the end of the 20th Century. The first is the power of Wahhabiyism (and its possible link to people like Ayman al-Zawahiri) and the second is the role of The Ayatollah in Iran and the way he “interpreted ” Islam to respond to a specific political situation.

In the 1960s, the Ayatollah Khomeini was exiled to France for 17 years and was exposed to Marxist political ideas there. For him, then, the 1979 revolution was not about a return to “fundamental” principles, but about a rejection of the West and an alignment of Shi’a Islam and iranian nationalism with Shia clerics taking an increasingly political role in the running of the Nation. (Nation-hood is a modern concept) In addition, the concept of “Istishhah” or martyrdom, takes on a nasty interpretation during the Iran-Iraq war and, of course, later with 9/11. Ayatollah Khomeini declared Mohammed Hossein Fahmideh a national hero for his suicide bombing of an Iraqi tank in November 1980. Fahmideh is generally recognised to be the first suicide bomber. Khomeini’s is a serious interpretation, or frankly a reversal, of the very clear condemnation of suicide by the Prophet and in the Koran. (2.195 and 10.56) “Do not throw yourself into destruction” and “It is HE who giveth life and taketh it…” This incident alone is enough to make it clear that whatever term is used to describe the Islamic message put forward by Khomeini, “fundamentalism”, a belief in the literal truth of the written text, it most definitely is not!

Nasruddin or Nasrudin

 

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Nasruddin was the figure in the Richard Williams film  that I discovered in the early 70s. The film changed completely when it became the “Thief and the Cobbler” and the Nasruddin character disappeared. There are various stories about why this happened. Last Sunday Williams simply said that the original story and the original character did not work. Nasruddin, however, is still visible in a crowd scene riding on his donkey (which he rides backwards)… here are some drawings of statues in Turkey- one faintly comic and the other more respectful. He was a real character but he used humour and his stories are laced with unexpected incident and comment. however, Nasruddin turns up in Turkish legend as Nasreddin Hoja and then again in Albanian as Nastrudin Hoxha. I don’t know whether it is more appropriate to see Nasrudin as Turkish or Iranian: the oldest manuscript from 1571 suggests he was Turkish or active in Turkey. When we made the first version of “A torture Cartoon”, it made sense to add a version of Nasruddin because Necati is Turkish

 

and then later when we did “how to be Boss” we did a new design and told one of the many Nasruddin stories. You can find the sequence at about 2.39: “Have you told your wife who is boss in your own house? Don’t worry. She knows!”

 

There is a Pappas illustrated edition of stories which I would love to see. Otherwise, the best editions are those illustrated by Williams himself and the spectacular Errol le Cain

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  • The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasreddin, by Idries Shah, illustrated by Richard Williams.

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  • The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasreddin, by Idries Shah, illustrated by Richard Williams and Errol Le Cain

Here is a link to the “what is bread?” section in what is left of the Williams film with Kenneth Williams’ voice:

 

It is simply delightful to listen to Kenneth Williams, and Richard Williams version of Nasruddin is so elegant. The Williams character should be spelt “Nasrudin” of course. Apologies.

Tyrion

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I worry a bit that the best character in “Game of Thrones” is about to be killed. Not only the best character but one of the better actors, Peter Dinklage (brilliant in “Find me Guilty”). The immediate reason for this post, however, is the work of Photis Varthis which can be found here (http://www.lifo.gr/team/u13557/48270). Not only is there an icon of Tyrion but just below it, is a Greek icon of Gollum and then Saruman, Eddard Stark and less successfully maybe, Walter White from “Breaking Bad”. Tremendous stuff. What is exciting is that this approach to the traditional icon is quite within the scope of Photis Kontoglou who revived the tradition of Icon painting in Orthodoxy in the 1950s. One of Kontoglou’s projects was the decoration of the Athens Town hall which meant pictures of Socrates and Euripides as well as Alexander the Great.

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The icon style lends itself to historical images, abstracting the characters and imbuing them with still dignity.

Now, there is another reason that I admire the actor who plays Tyrion. At an acceptance speech for an award in the US, Peter Dinklage drew attention to the fate of Martin Henderson who had been picked up and thrown around in Somerset. He was severely injured. Anyway, I wonder where this actor can go next. Certainly there are a number of theatre roles that should be considered- Hamlet is one. I would look forward to such a performance and the star billing would pack the houses as much as Dr Who’s Hamlet did a few years’ ago! While on the subject of “Game of thrones” it is well worth praising the animation of the dragons. It sets the bar very high indeed for cinematic dragons like Smaug. We have come along way from “Dragonheart” which was tremendous as well but the criteria have changed – our standards are simply dealing with the illusion of reality. This is along way from what Disney was doing in the 1930s and a long way from what the great special effects people like Harryhausen did in the 50s and 60’s. The Disney bible of animation is “the Illusion of Life” by Thomas and Johnson and is about believability rather than reality (though it is called “the illusion of life”, that is probably the point: we all recognise it is an “illusion” when we see a 2d Mickey Mouse walking and talking and we know it is not real. Richard Williams said that the beauty of animation and the beauty of art lies in the errors. Computers do not make such errors so with Smaug and all the special effects stuff as well as modern 3d computer-generated animation, we are dealing with something new – we are in the realm of quite an elaborate deceit- it is an art too, but not so obviously I think. I will post something soon about “automatonophobia”, it is very much the stuff of ETA Hoffmann so we are on familiar territory.) – when we see the dragon in “the Hobbit”, we do not need to “willingly suspend our disbelief”, the dragon looks real. In fact, we do not have to do any work at all. We are the passive watchers of a spectacle. I admire it alot but I would prefer to do a bit of work myself at the same time: and back to Game of Thrones- one of the few programmes on TV that I can generally watch without going to sleep, mostly because I never quite know what to expect. I was surprised by the gory end of Oberyn Martell, another excellent character.